Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

told the attendant, “Fill her up.” Over on the left I could see a Coke machine and candy machine by the side. “Can I have a Coke and candy on my credit card, too?” I asked. I felt kind of foolish, but by that time I was really hungry. “Okay,” said the attendant. Then he eyed me suspiciously. “Where are you heading for, bub?” “Oh . . . ah . . . East . . . Salt Lake City,” I spluttered. “You got 600 miles to go, bub.” “I know. I make the trip all the time,” I boasted. Back on the road I didn’t feel so confident. Salt Lake City was more than 750 miles from Los Angeles and I was alone, cold, broke and hungry. And I was beginning to figure that maybe my running away wouldn’t solve anything anyway. Maybe turn back? I thought it over, but then I got angry. “Got to show them I’m not a kid ... I’m a man ... I can handle myself,” I decided. That was another thing I was sore about. The folks always thought I wasn’t able to look after myself. It was always, “Be careful, dear.” Other fellows got messed up in football, but their mothers didn’t get hysterical about it. But my mother was different. She was always fretting over me. And, I guess, from the day I was born, I seemed to have been plagued with one illness or accident or something. There was the time when I was ten. I woke up screaming one night. Mother hurried into my bedroom and after putting her hand on my forehead, said, “You’ve got fever.” I was sweating like mad, too, and doubled up with a pain right in the middle of my stomach. The doctors came — one by one — and examined me and said something about kidneys. Then they gave me some medicine to ease the pain. For two years from that night I had to visit the doctor twice a week, every single week. When the treatments didn’t help, finally an operation was ordered. I was nearly scared to death. It was okay and I was feeling better after that. But for months I was cooped up in bed. Finally, when I was able to go out and play with the kids, I lasted about one month. I needed another operation, quickly — an emergency appendectomy. By the time I reached fourteen I had three major operations and felt like a surgical guinea pig. I also knew what it was to feel lonely. Those weeks of pain and loneliness, when I didn’t know a single kid. I don’t think I’ll ever forget them. When I’d be half-wake and half-asleep . . . the nurses and the doctors and the relatives . . . and then the lingering days which sometimes stretched into months at home where I *-fould sit, day after day, propped up in bed or by the window, not allowed to go out with the kids. And always being careful. It didn’t seem as though I was ever going to be able to have the fun the other fellows had. One day I spoke to dad about it. “I’m tired of staying in bed,” I told him. “I always seem to get the bad breaks.” Dad explained that boredom and not having fun are all part of living. “It’s part of the struggle for survival,” he said. “Nothing comes easy in life . . . you don’t get stronger by walking downhill ... so we all have our struggles to strengthen us.” “But I always seem to walk uphill.” No, that wasn’t quite true, I thought, as I glared at the road ahead of me. In many ways I had been blessed with a great deal other fellows didn’t have. There was this car, for instance. Most of the other kids didn’t have the use of a car. Still, ironically enough, when I did get well again and was able to mix with the other kids, I always seemed to be getting injured, knocked over or something like that. Twice I was knocked down by a car. Once Creighton accidently gashed me with a knife. Another time I broke my arm playing football and I broke my arm again while I was playing baseball one day. I just seeme'd to have a knack for that sort of thing. Worse, there was the embarrassment of it all, like the time I was passing a football to a pal after school and the football coach said, “Horton, why don’t you try out for the team?” I remember wishing at that moment that the ground might open up and swallow me so to save me from having to tell him, in front of the others, that I had a kidney ailment and that I had to “take it easy.” Because I looked so big and healthy. “Ah, maybe Mom has reasons to feel like she does,” I thought to myself, and swung the car a little as the road began to rise uphill and I realized I was approaching the mountains. Soon I would be entering Nevada. Over the high Sierras, then the stretches of plateaus and then the deserts; through Nevada and into Utah I drove completely alone and with all my resentments screaming at me as though there were a thousand people in the car. The trip made no sense, I guess, and I know that now. But I couldn’t turn back. It had become a matter of pride more than anything else that was urging me on. I kept thinking over and over about Creighton, about my parents, about my being sick, about the other kids. Maybe I just wasn’t like the rest of the Hortons. I liked sports cars, bright colors and sporty clothes. They all preferred big black Cadillacs, dark colors and conservative clothes. I began to feel sure I was far more suited to being an artist, a racing driver or a professional football player than a doctor, lawyer or educator. Maybe even an actor. Sure, I had always enjoyed excitement, action, adventure, laughs and an actor had plenty of these. But truthfully I can see now that at that time I just didn’t know what I wanted. And the journey wasn’t helping any. And the more I brooded the more I felt the bridge between me and my parents widen. Then I remember saying out loud, “I’m a rebel, that’s all.” What about the time when I was six, I thought. Even then I was so keen to think for myself and be independent that I stood on a street corner and tried to sell lemonade. I had bought the lemonade from a store near the school with money I had saved up for weeks. I had also bought some little wax-paper cups and was doing a roaring trade with all the kids in the neighborhood. Then someone shouted that my folks were parked in the family limousine around the corner, watching me tolerantly. I became furious. “Why can’t they let Here I am , at fifteen, at military school. me alone?” I thought. But they were only watching, they didn’t try to stop me. Then I began to think about school again. Actually, studies had never interested me. I was always bored and found all sorts of ways of sneaking out of class and back again without being caught. Then the principal found out and warned me that he couldn’t tolerate such behavior. There were more harsh words and my father was called in and warned that I would be expelled if I didn’t change my ways. At home Dad threatened me with a “tougher school.” A military academy. I thought back to that morning and the “final warning” the principal had given me because, despite all the rows, I had not improved and my marks were still far from good. It had been enough to make me really blow up and convince me that all those plans I had been storing up about running away should be put into action — now. Had that all only been a few hours ago? I couldn’t believe it. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, I came to Salt Lake City. I must have been driving for fifteen hours. All I could think of was to find a piece of property I knew my dad owned and to park in front of it. Somehow I felt safe, knowing it was j Dad’s. I must have fallen asleep almost immediately because I can barely remember even pulling the car by the side of the road. I woke fairly early, about seven, and felt numb with cold. I had to get a hot drink, something to eat. I could go to my cousin, a doctor, who lived in town. Then I noticed a luncheonette on the corner. I had enough for coffee. And I can remember cupping my hands around that cup of coffee as though it contained the only heat left in the world. Should I go on to my cousin? I began to feel alone and very small. The coffee had warmed me but I still felt very hungry. I dug in my pockets and found forty cents, and then I ordered another cup of coffee and a toasted muffin to go with it. That made me feel better, good enough, at least, to go and see my cousin. When I got there, he told me Dad had called and that he and Mother were very worried. He led me to a chair in the living room, put through a call to my house and then handed me the phone. “Bob,” my father’s voice came through, “are you all right?” “Sure, Dad, sure,” I answered. “I’m sorry if I worried you.” “Well, I kept telling Mother you were a good driver,” he said, “I knew you could take care of yourself.” I didn’t know what to say and there was a kind of uncomfortable pause. Then Dad said, very quietly, “Well, Bob, what do you want to do?” “I want to stay here, through next week anyway,” I told him. “All right,” he said. “Whatever you decide. But I’ve got to tell you that your principal says he’ll expel you if you’re not back in school by Monday. I don’t say that to pressure you, Bob, but I think you ought to know.” “All right. Dad,” I said. I hung up the phone, feeling relieved that he hadn’t lectured me and wondering if he’d really meant that part about believing I could take care of myself. If he did, maybe we could be friends, but I’d have to go home to find out. Anyway, when I faced up to it, I really didn’t want to be expelled from school. I got some more sleep at my cousin’s house, then woke up, showered and had some breakfast. Then, feeling terribly deflated, like a champion going' down with his first blow, I started the trip home.